Monster
by Shadows of a Dream
Summary: Maybe she isn't the only one. / JackxElsa. Crossover. One-shot. Honest reviews mean the world; I will reply to feedback if possible.


**~x~X~x~**

** Summary: **Maybe she isn't the only one. / JackxElsa. Crossover. One-shot. Honest reviews mean the world; I will reply to feedback if possible.

**~x~X~x~**

_A flake of snow in flurry thro' the air _

_Had landed as a kiss upon my cheek:_

_A secret message, just for me to share;_

_To take to heart but never dare to speak_

_About or presuppose to other eyes_

_Your open feelings – distant though they are._

_And so, upon your lips, my own surprise:_

_A flake of snow returned from me afar._

**~ "A Winter Message," Mark R Slaughter**

**~x~X~x~**

**MONSTER**

**~x~X~x**

**1.**

Once upon a time, two princesses lived in the royal castle of Arendelle, and they were all alone in its elegant halls.

**2.**

Once upon a time, a brave boy drowned to save his sister, and the moon resurrected him as a spirit of love and laughter.

**3.**

To be a princess is to bear the burden of a nation. To be a princess and a child is to know nothing of this.

Their wonderful world of winter is small and safe, fragile in its beauty, like a rare and precious snowglobe. The royal sisters of Arendelle build cities of snowmen in the crystal dome.

Their childhood kingdom is simple enough to fit in a pocket or in the palm of a hand. Among their snowy subjects, they pretend to be queens. Women of the winter. Ladies of the lashing wind and ice.

Rulers of nothing and everything in their sheltered, snowglobe life.

**4.**

His world is infinite, the whole planet laid bare beneath his flight. He loops and laughs and lives, for a moment, as a child ought to live. Content with fading fantasies and false phantasms. Unafraid and unabashed.

Then Jack Frost swoops back down to the earth, and all he wants in the whole wide world is someone, somewhere, to share it with. Somehow. Someday.

_ Someday... _he breathes to the stars, his breath pluming in the chill night.

The moon observes his torment. Its silence is its answer.

**5.**

Once upon a time, a wise troll called Pabbie warned an ice princess, _The heart is not so easily changed._

**6.**

Time is a cruel and distant master, indifferent to the silent tears that slip out and freeze against Jack Frost's cheeks, like rogue ice crystals against his skin.

One night, when the gaping maw of sheer _aloneness _feels like enough to erase him, he tries to straighten the curve in his staff. When it snaps, he's forced to will it back together — still crooked. He wonders, does magic always twist its vessels?

Is there something twisted inside of him?

**7.**

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, Princess Elsa's eyes fly wide, and she thinks the glass around she and her sister might shatter.

When it finally does, there's icy skin and pounding hooves and whispered warnings among the trolls, and she is still broken — jagged shards of that forsaken snowglobe realm embedded in her very heart — but her sister will never know.

**8.**

The two princesses dance in the swirling snow and howling wind. Their joy is reckless – a gift or a curse, or maybe both.

After a small, flawless eternity of running free, the younger princess, Anna, begins to shiver. The elder, Elsa, leads her back to Arendelle castle. She settles her beside the fire with a warm drink and a wool blanket. And then, only then, when her sister has fallen into the silent bliss of sleep, does Princess Elsa slip back out into the snow.

A long time ago, she ceased to answer winter's call. Yet even now, after so many years, she cannot help but listen.

Unbidden, a flurry of snowflakes comes to rest in Princess Elsa's long, blond tresses. She catches one on her tongue. Tastes it before it fades away. Sighing, she closes her eyes.

_ Are you like me?_

Although it has never spoken aloud, Elsa knows the voice of winter.

_ Are you like me? _the winter whispers again.

"Not anymore," Elsa says as she turns away.

Silence. Snowflakes.

The voice, broken. _You can... hear me?_

Princess Elsa turns, and locks gazes with a boy.

**9.**

Uncharted lakes frozen over. Ice tracing patterns of unspoken scars. A world frozen in silent winter. A dancing descent of crystal white flakes. A beating heart buried beneath steadily falling snow.

This is what Princess Elsa sees in Jack Frost's eyes.

Danger.

Beauty.

Promise.

There's winter in his deep azure gaze — elegant and isolated, intricate and breakable.

_ Winter_.

Elsa does not look away.

_You can see me. You can see me!_

**10.**

Once upon a time, a princess and a guardian met after nightfall, at the beginning of every new week and the end of another, when the sunlight was spilling over the snow.

_ That's all we are,_ the princess told herself. _An end or a beginning._

No one told her it would be a beginning.

**11.**

She's beautiful, he thinks, the way a blizzard is beautiful — dazzling in its fury, mind-numbing in its power. She raises fear and love alike, one often brought about by the other.

He tries – he truly _tries, _clenching and unclenching his fists, trying to talk some sense into his head – but he can't make himself feel afraid.

**12.**

Once upon a time, a princess and a guardian whispered words to each other, and the winter wind carried them from her lips to his.

**13.**

"Do you ever have fun anymore?" says the boy.

"Fun?" says the girl. "Do you think a princess has time for fun?"

"I'm a guardian," says the boy. "I defend the dreams of children everywhere. I give them the gift of laughter. I slay their nightmares when fear comes. And I still have time for fun."

"Fun nearly killed my sister," says the girl.

"Fun is what keeps her alive," says the boy.

"It's what destroyed us," says the girl.

"It's what gives her a reason to hope," says the boy.

"_Hope_?" says the girl. "Our parents are at the bottom of the sea. I bear forbidden power, and yet they call upon me to rule a kingdom. My sister — _my own sister _— can know nothing of me. Where is there hope?"

"Hope comes in pieces," says the boy. "Like snowflakes. Look away, and the wind might have carried them to somewhere else. But if you notice them, if you collect them, you could build something. Like a snowman."

"A snowman..." says the girl.

"It doesn't start out that way," says the boy. "It starts out as scattered flakes. Pieces. Moments. But each piece is beautiful in its own way."

"I have never been beautiful," says the girl.

So the boy takes her face in his trembling hands, and wipes away a stray, frozen tear, and leans in to taste the snow and the salt on her lips.

**14.**

Kissing Jack Frost is soft, and slow, and intoxicating. For a moment, she is beautiful — not a secret sorceress but a shining Snow Queen. For a moment, all she wants is to let someone touch her bare skin. Without flinching. Without wincing or shuddering or cringing away.

And then her ever-present gloves are tossed aside in the snow, and his fingers are tangled in her golden hair, and he's kissing her and she's kissing him back and it's so beautiful that it feels like she's shattering.

And then she does.

She shatters.

There's ice streaming from her fingers, and ice bursting from her chest, and ice sparking in her eyes, and ice shrieking from her lungs, and ice roaring in her heart, and ice and ice _and ice _—

The kiss ends.

Princess Elsa is gasping, sobbing, shaking in the snow.

The winter boy says, "I'm not afraid of you."

But it doesn't matter, because she is afraid of herself.

**15.**

Conceal, don't feel.

Conceal.

Don't feel.

Don't let them in; don't let them see.

Don't let them in.

Don't let_ him _in_._

She rehearses her lines like a stage play, until she hears them in her dreams. Until she stops seeing his winter eyes.

**16.**

"It's me, Elsa... It's Jack. I'm right here! Can't you see me? Oh, no... No, no, _no_! You're the only one who can see me. You can't just — you _can't _— I need you to see me, Elsa! All I've ever wanted was for someone to see me..."

**17.**

Once upon a time, a wise troll called Pabbie warned a snow queen, _But the head can be persuaded._

**18.**

She doesn't see anything but the snow. She doesn't hear anything but the wind.

So why, Elsa will ask herself a thousand times, does she feel his lips when they kiss her forehead and linger there — one heartbeat, two, three — and then feel them breathe _goodbye_, and then they vanish into the impossible breadth of forever.

**19.**

She never stops seeing his winter eyes.

**20.**

He alights on the balcony of her ice castle, soundless as a spirit. But she feels his presence in her very soul.

"You shouldn't be here," says the girl.

"I love you," says the boy.

The girl's heart thuds against her ribs, as if trying to break out. "I'm frozen," she says. "I don't know what love is anymore."

"Let me show you," says the boy, kissing her lightly on the lips.

She lingers for a moment too long, remembering the taste of him before pulling away. "You shouldn't be here," she says.

"I love you," says the boy.

"I don't know how to love," says the girl.

"Not me. Not yet," says the boy. "But there is one person that you love."

"Who?" says the girl.

The boy flashes a crooked smile. "That's the magic of love," he says. "You have to find out for yourself."

He turns on his heel and rises into flight, hovering for an instant in the ice chamber, radiant in the moonlight. Then the eternal winter carries him from sight.

Elsa wishes, despite herself, that she had kissed him back.

**21.**

Once upon a time, two assassins came for the blood of the Snow Queen.

But her heart was frozen shut, and she nearly sealed her fate in their demise.

**22.**

"I almost killed him," says the girl.

"I know," says the boy.

"I could have killed him," says the girl.

"I know," says the boy.

"I wanted to kill him," says the girl.

The boy says nothing.

"I'm a monster," says the girl. "You can see that now."

"I saw that a long time ago," says the boy.

"You were never afraid," says the girl.

"Because sometimes," says the boy, "I'm a monster, too."

"But I'm the one in chains," says the girl. "How did you get in here, anyway?"

"I love you."

"I don't know how to love."

"You do," says the boy. "You'll see."

He pulls his indigo hood over his silver hair, and then he's gone.

**23.**

The queen's chains chafe at her wrists, but the guardian's chafe at his heart.

Jack Frost barely makes it out of her cell before the sobs hit, unrelenting. He breathes her name towards the silent, winking stars. He whispers it to the vast ebony sky. He screams it towards the moon that created him, pleading for a reason — any reason at all — why he has to watch her suffer.

_Elsa._

_Elsa, Elsa, Elsa..._

Alone again.

As he has always been. As it seems it was meant to be.

He thinks of the Snow Queen, shedding silent tears in her cell.

Maybe he isn't the only one.

**24.**

Despite the tightness of her metal restraints, Elsa paces her cell all through the night. What is she, after all? Surely not a queen. Surely not a lover.

_What am I?_

An outcast. Unseen. Unwanted. Gifted and cursed. Blessed and damned.

A monster.

His velvet voice invades her darkest musings. _Sometimes, I'm a monster, too._

Maybe she isn't the only one.

**25.**

Once upon a time, a snow queen and a winter guardian loved each other fiercely.

And when they were alone, each felt the other in isolation.

**26.**

_Everything ends, _the legends say.

Kingdoms and chaos. Love and war. Magic and emptiness. Summer and winter.

_Everything ends_, the legends say, _and every end is a beginning._

**27.**

Everything ends, and as is fitting for the Queen of Arendelle, it ends in the snow.

Her strength failing, her frozen heart pounding, Elsa cringes away from the false prince of the Twelve Isles. The snow whips about her like a giant's angry breath. She wants to close her eyes, but she's too afraid.

_Princess Anna is dead._

Cracks spider across her frozen heart. Splitting. Fracturing.

_Monster._

As Prince Hans raises his sword, Elsa is ready for the end.

**28.**

Everything ends, and as is fitting for the winter guardian, it ends in the snow.

Jack Frost is screaming at the top of his lungs, throwing himself at the lying prince, clawing at the upraised silver blade as if he could take the blow for her.

But Prince Hans does not believe in laughter. When Jack leaps upon him, crying _stop, stop, stop _as loud as he can, he passes through the prince's body like water. And he falls, face-first, into the snow.

"_ELSA_!"

Without a sound, the prince's blade descends.

**29.**

Once upon a time, a winter guardian shrieked the name of a snow queen.

And the snow queen heard his cry, and met his tortured eyes.

**30.**

Everything ends, and as is fitting for such cold souls, it ends in ice.

He looks into her terrified face, and she looks back, and for an instant they are bound in desperation, time stumbling over the next second, the great clock of the universe halting —

— and then Princess Anna is between them —

— and then Princess Anna is forged of ice.

**31.**

Elsa clings, weeping, to the statue that was once her sister. The winter is silent and still.

Unseen by anyone else, Jack Frost wipes a tear from her cheek. _Don't cry, Elsa... my queen... my love._

Elsa shivers, her face locked in a rictus of sorrow.

He whispers, _There is one person that you love._

**32.**

Once upon a time, an icy magic slew a princess.

But love was a greater magic, and she returned to life in her sister's arms.

**33.**

It takes a month before Elsa is ready to see him again.

She is shaken by the echoes of a lonely mountain and an ice castle, assassins come to spill her lifeblood, snowmen and winter giants coming to life at her command. She is wanted again, held close by her resurrected sister. She is accepted again, welcomed back to the palace by servants who no longer fear her.

Arendelle awaits a ruler. And so Elsa is needed again.

Something gnaws at her heart in the night, the ghost of gentle fingers in her hair, the specter of soft, cool lips moving with her own. At last, after yet another dream of his long-lost voice and his longed-for touch, Elsa tells her sister of her winter spirit. Anna believes every word.

And so the princess tells the kingdom.

**34.**

"Aren't you Queen Elsa's love?"

The villager is looking into his eyes, stunned. Disbelieving.

And Jack Frost cries – not only for the girl his soul longs for, but from the shock and the wonder of being seen again. "Yes," he says. "Yes, I am."

A crowd gathers. Escorts him to the castle. Squints in the snow to see the queen reunited with her love. But they never kiss, to the crowd's dismay. Queen Elsa calls up a flurry, and the wind spirits them away to the castle tower.

The whole kingdom can see Jack Frost, but all he wants to look at is his beautiful, winter girl.

**35.**

It takes a week before she allows him to kiss her again. Another week before they admit what has always been.

He kneels in the snow, indigo hood lowered, silver hair tousled, and asks, "Elsa, my queen, will you marry me?"

And the most magical thing is, she says yes.

**36.**

Once upon a time, there were two weddings in Arendelle.

The princess and the wanderer.

The snow queen and her guardian.

And when Jack Frost kissed Queen Elsa, they say the moon cast silver light upon the snow.

They ruled Arendelle all their days, and when Elsa's hours ran short, the guardians welcomed her among them, transforming her into an immortal queen of ice and snow. Elsa and Jack Frost returned to Arendelle castle, ruling with justice and compassion alike, ensuring that not one of their subjects ever believed themselves to be alone.

Their years were limitless, their love forever pure.

And they lived happily ever after.

**~x~X~x~**

** A/N: **I saw "Frozen" yesterday at 3:45 – and became immediately obsessed, moreso even than after I saw "Rise of the Guardians". I was up until 2:00 in the morning writing this fanfic, and I finished it this afternoon.

Usually, I have disdain for crossover fanfic, especially crossover couples. I thought that Jack/Elsa was a fandom phenomenon solely because they both had ice powers, which was a silly reason, in my mind. Then I started brainstorming, and I found that they were emotionally compatible – two lonely, rejected, gifted people desperate for someone to see them for what they are. And then I looked up fan art, and it was all downhill from there. I ship Jackelsa like nobody's business.

(I don't own the cover image, unfortunately. I can't draw to save my life... Some amazing human being on the Internet drew it. If you find out who, feel free to let me know and I'll add an acknowledgment.)

Please do take the time to review. I will reply to feedback if at all possible. Honest critique is also welcome.

Thank you for reading!

_**Edit: the cover art is drawn by a user called "toritewa" on DeviantArt. I don't know said user, but obviously, the art speaks for itself. *launches confetti cannon* *summons applause***_


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